So, we hit the top 20 in our countdown of the best James Bond films ever, and at number 20, we have quite possibly the weirdest film in the official series, although the 1967 spoof version of Casino Royale outdoes it in the weirdness stakes overall, and also Roger Moore's final Bond adventure. A View To A Kill.
That was the teaser trailer, and this is the theatrical trailer...
It's notable that for all these trailer promotions for the film, they're still using the same gun barrel style footage that was first shot back in 1973 for Live & Let Die, even though the films since 1977 had used a different gun barrel.
After the success of Octopus, Roger Moore had been persuaded to do just one more film and this was to be his Bond swan song. He was 58 at the time, and was regarded by a lot of people as being too old for the role really. But, he'd pulled it off quite well in Octopussy, so how was he going to fare here?
Time to find out.
THE PRE-TITLE SEQUENCE
So after the same gun-barrel sequence that we've seen since The Spy Who Love Me, with the same arrangement that we've heard before in Moonraker and Octopussy, the circle opens out to reveal an icy landscape with a helicopter flying over it, and the pilot speaks to the person in the other seat, in a language we don't understand, but we guess is probably Russian. Okay, I guess we're setting up the enemy here. We then, barely, see an individual against the snow, who is frantically searching through the snow for something, or as it turns out, someone, as we see a dead body being uncovered in the snow.
There's one moment where I really cringe, and that is the moment when the helicopter suddenly flies over this guy, and the sound just comes out of nowhere. That never happens. You'd have heard that coming a long way off, and the sound just wouldn't suddenly appear out of nowhere. Such an obvious mistake to make, so early in the film, but one that really just shouldn't have been made.
Anyway, we see that the man in the white coat is in fact, our man James Bond. Information reaches other Russian skiers, and they set off after our hero. Bond finds a locket, which inside has a microchip. But he is then spotted, and he has to get away, starting a ski chase, which is something the Bond films seem to have done a lot, ever since On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It was in fact the 4th such ski sequence in the Bond films, and like the previous 3, this one was directed by Willy Bogner, who seems to be brilliant at getting ski footage on film.
The first part of the ski chase is interesting, if a little standard, but not in a bad way. It gives us a good start. But Bond can never just ski, and so he ends up losing a ski. But Bond hijacks a Russian skimobile and tries to make his escape on that. But he is quickly spotted, and dives aside, just before the skimobile is blown up. But one piece lands near Bond and he improvises with it, to make his escape, to the worst selection of music ever, not just in a Bond film, but in movie history.
It comes in at about 3:30 in this video of the entire pre-title sequence.
Now, a lot people think that the recording of California Girls used in the film is done by The Beach Boys. That is, in fact, a myth. The version used here sounds way too 80s to be The Beach Boys.
Here's the real recording of The Beach Boys' California Girls, and you'll notice the beat is slower here than it is in the version the film uses.
The actual version used in the film, is a cover version by Gidea Park with Adrian Baker, which had been released in 1982, as part of a medley track, called California Gold. You can hear it here, and you'll hear that is sounds exactly like the version used in the film.
Okay, so the version used in the movie has been settled definitively. But why was it used in this improvised snowboard scene? Trying to evoke surfing thoughts? It's inappropriate for the film, no matter what you're trying to do. Thankfully, they only use it for about 40 seconds or so, before they go back to proper John Barry music for the climax as the helicopter tries to kill Bond, but Bond uses a signal flare to take the helicopter down and signal for pick up from his hidden submarine, and he seduces an MI6 operative who is piloting the craft, and has sex with her. Seriously? The woman is young enough to be his daughter. I get that some women like older men, but this feels cringeworthy. Bond looks old here, and not in a good way either.
This is a common theme that will crop up at other points in the movie, and I know it is present in other Bond movies too, but in this one, it feels particularly bad.
THE TITLE SEQUENCE
Okay, these title sequences are all good in their own way, and this one is no different, but in a way, that's exactly the point. There isn't much about this title sequence that particularly stands out, for either good or bad reasons, other than perhaps the woman skiing on the spot, but that's a minor quibble really.
It's just okay, there isn't a lot special about it. I can't say much more than that.
THE PLOT
So the film itself opens up with an exterior shot of Universal Exports, before we cut inside to the outer office of Miss Moneypenny, only no sign of Moneypenny. Did Penelope Smallbone from the previous film, Octopussy, replace her? Bond comes into the office and goes to throw his hat onto the hatstand, but stops when he sees the hat that's already there. It looks like something that might be worn at Royal Ascot.
Moneypenny appears from the inner office, and she is dressed in a very fancy dress. Bond asks if it's a little over the top for the office, and it's setting up something that will happen later on. But we get a little banter between Bond and Moneypenny, before M interrupts over the intercom, and tells Moneypenny to "Omit the customary pleasantries..." which is a line we haven't heard for a while. Nice touch.
Bond goes in to find M, Q and the Minister of Defence, as well as a robot dog. Have we just strayed into Doctor Who territory here? Is K9 making a guest appearance in the Bond franchise?
It turns out that the mission in the pre-title sequence, actually has some relevance to the plot. Q gives a briefing detailing how one of their contractors came up with a chip totally impervious to magnetic pulse damage. Huh, they should have been using those in Goldeneye.
The chip recovered by 007 in Siberia in the pre-title sequence is exactly the same as one that came direct from the manufacturer. That indicates that the KGB has a pipeline into that company. Just 6 months earlier that company had been taken over by Zorin Industries. The Minister of Defence is wary about investigating a man who he understands to be a staunch anti-communist with influential friends in the French Government, and informs M that they have to be discreet about this.
Bond is then told to get properly dressed, and we cut to what looks like Royal Ascot. It might be Glorious Goodwood for all I know, but it's certainly a major horse racing event. Whilst most of the crew, Moneypenny included, good to see her out of the office, she hasn't done any field work since Diamonds Are Forever, watch the race, M & Bond are watching our antagonists in this film. Max Zorin, played by Christopher Walken, and May Day, played by Grace Jones. Zorin's horse wins the race, and Zorin is presented with the prize, a gold cup by the looks of it. Huh, was this the Ascot Gold Cup? Or maybe it's silver, I'm not too sure.
We are introduced to Sir Godfrey Tibet, played here by Patrick MacNee, who is best known for playing John Steed in the Avengers TV series of the 1960s and The New Avengers of the 1970s. Sir Godfrey is a racehorse trainer, who has a french detective friend called Aubergine investigating Zorin's horses on behalf of the French Jockey Club. Bond arranges to meet up with Aubergine and Aubergine tells Bond what he knows over a dinner at the Eiffel Tower restaurant.
Okay, at this point, apart from the robot dog and the California Girls music in the pre-title sequence, everything seems pretty normal so far, but it's from this point onwards, that everything starts getting a little weird.
During dinner, they are treated to some 'entertainment', and I use the term loosely, which allows May Day to come into the restaurant in disguise, and kill Aubergine, using a poisoned butterfly prop of some kind. Don't ask me to explain it really, I don't really get it.
This leads into a chase sequence up the Eiffel Tower, which is quite well shot considering all the obstructions and structure. But I have to admit, running up the Eiffel Tower to escape Bond is just about the dumbest move you can make.
Which gives me an excuse to talk about the action sequence direction here. Arthur Wooster was doing his third Bond film as second unit director, so what's happening with the action sequences here isn't being done by someone new, and also the writing team of Michael G Wilson and Richard Maibaum were also on their third film, so everything should have been coming together. Instead, we seem to have a sequence that seems to have been put together purely for the purpose of having someone parachute off the Eiffel Tower.
In story terms, it makes no sense how we get to that point. If I'm an assassin, who's just killed someone, I am not going to go running up the Eiffel Tower, to get away from a pursuer, you are effectively cornering yourself. You will run wherever you can, to make an effective ground escape.
So that is my first problem with the sequence.
The second is the taxi part of this sequence. The sequence plays far too comedically, especially at the start with the driver that Bond ejected from the car, running after it. His reactions are way over the top, and badly dubbed too, which doesn't help.
At the end of the chase sequence, Bond is arrested, by what looks like a couple of chefs with meat cleavers. Yet, we saw him fall into a wedding cake. You don't need meat cleavers for a wedding cake...
Anyway, there was a sequence cut from the film here, where M arrives to bail out Bond. Having watched the sequence, it is intended to be a light hearted sequence, and we get a guest appearance of Red Grant's garrotte watch from From Russia With Love, which would have been nice to see, nice touch of continuity, but overall, the sequence is probably better out. John Glen says it more resembled something out of a Pink Panther film, than a James Bond film, and whilst the guy playing the French policeman here is no Clouseau, it does feel somewhat wrong in tone. It was just one of many moments in this film that were wrong in tone and this was rightfully cut. To me it felt like a scene out of a Bond parody, rather than an official James Bond film.
So, the next scene we see is Bond being driven away from the police station, and being reminded that this is meant to be a discreet operation, and arranging with Sir Godfrey to attend a sale at Zorin's stables.
Bond and Sir Godfrey go undercover to the event, Bond under the name St John Smith, pronounced Sinjon Smythe, and we are introduced to Scarpine, head of security, played by Patrick Bauchau in his first major Hollywood production. He makes a good henchman here, but nothing special. There isn't really anything about him that makes him stand out.
We're also introduced to Jenny Flex, played by Alison Doody. She really only has this scene where she speaks at all, and a couple of shots elsewhere and that's it. It's almost pointless to introduce her here, other than for a cheap gag, and really that's all she gets. This is her first role in her career, and she would later make a more substantial appearance in Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade.
We get a nice little moment where Bond and Tibbett find a bug in their room, and their interaction actually in this film is one of the highlights. Patrick MacNee is a great actor, if you never saw his John Steed in The Avengers, you missed someone who was in many ways, a pre-cursor for the film version of James Bond, especially how he developed from Goldfinger onwards. It makes the Ralph Feinnes version in that disastrous late 90s film, look all the worse. In a way, it's kind of appropriate here to have him as part of the Bond universe, you almost want it to be James Bond and John Steed together, rather than Bond and Tibbett, but the moments with them are good and helps raise the film up a bit. After the farce of the chase in Paris, this feels much more Bondian.
There's also some wonderful solo moments with Tibbett with his investigation of Pegasus' stable. It's nice that we get a little bit, just a flavour, of John Steed in this film, even if he isn't called John Steed.
As a helicopter arrives at the mansion, we are introduced here to Stacey Sutton, played by Tanya Roberts, although we know nothing about her at this point. She could be another wealthy horse owner, or something else entirely, we really don't know. There's a party scene, which I know is meant to help move the plot along, but really, it just feels like an excuse to have Bond in a tuxedo, it really doesn't do much for me. I'd prefer a different way of him finding out who all these people are, than photos taken with a camera the size of a ring, that's just ludicrous, even for today's technology, so back in 1985, it was even more ludicrous. We also get a moment where Bond meets Zorin. Like the rest of the party scene, it's weak and really feels slightly contrived.
Bond also meets Stacey Sutton here, but doesn't get her first name, he only knows her as S. Sutton from a cheque that he managed to obtain via some strange photocopying device. Again, it feels weak and isn't even referenced later on.
That night, Tibbett goes to check out the stable where Pegasus disappeared from earlier, only to encounter Bond in a strangely suspect way. Anyway, they discover an underground lab, where the doctor, who we discovered at the party was called Dr Mortner, has performed surgery on Pegasus to implant a small capsule of natural horse steroid into Pegasus, controlled by a remote device, that could fit into the tip of a jockey's whip, or a cane.
Anyway, a security team discovers the stable has been breached and go down to check it out, but beneath the lab is something even weirder. It looks like a factory/warehouse, where boxes of microchips are being hoarded by Zorin. This is never explained in the film, why he is doing this. We can figure it out based on other things in the plot, but it's a setup without a payoff, and I'm afraid brings the film down a bit.
Anyway, the security team find their way down to this area, and a fight breaks out. It's not as bad as the cable car fight in Moonraker, but it's pretty weak. Neither Roger Moore nor Patrick MacNee were young guys at this point, and the whole fight feels very contrived as though the filmmakers are having to work around this, and it doesn't make for a great fight sequence. Not bad, but not great, just okay really.
We're about 2 reels in and there's been nothing really that was particularly good, and a couple of moments that have been really cringeworthy, and some slightly non-sensical things, but nothing that jumped out at me as particularly awful.
Anyway, we get a sequence here that really feels awful. May Day is training Max Zorin in martial arts. Okay, I guess I can go with this. It kind of presents her as maybe a bodyguard-type, but doesn't really fit in with the outfit she wore at the race. An outfit like that one didn't really say bodyguard. But Zorin ends up on top and looks like he's turned on by this, and he kisses her. It's weirdness without purpose, really. What is this scene in the film for? Is it meant to show that he's not quite right in the head? There's better ways of doing that.
Anyway, Zorin gets notified of a break in at the plant, and they decide to check in on St John Smith. Finding him not there, May Day remembers that he was the man chasing her at the Eiffel Tower. Obviously facial recognition and memory were not things the good Dr Mortner thought were important... you'll understand what I'm saying later...
May Day goes to get properly dressed and discovers St John Smith/Bond in her bed waiting for her. This is perhaps the most cringeworthy part of this film yet. Bond beds May Day, instead of May Day immediately trying to kill Bond? Holy non-sequitur, Batman! Oops, sorry, wrong franchise...
Next morning, Bond meets up with Zorin, with Zorin pretending to be searching for a horse in his database. In fact he's using a KGB computer link to discover St John Smith's real identity. Bond sends Tibbett into town to get a message to London, whilst he goes riding with Zorin. Err, okay...
Tibbett is killed in a car wash. It's a shame really that he dies here, it was good seeing Moore and MacNee together like this. Meanwhile, Zorin tries to eliminate Bond using many elaborate traps on a practice course. Again, this makes little sense. This really is nothing more than an elaborate excuse to have Bond riding a horse. Bond spies the Rolls Royce and thinks he's about to escape, not realising that Tibbett is dead and they plan a similar fate for him. Bond is knocked unconscious. Why they don't kill him there, I don't know, but oh well. They drive the rolls to a lake, and May Day pushes the car into the lake. Okay, so she's super strong, we've seen that before various henchmen, but this just feels tired now.
I gotta give them some credit though for actually hanging around once the car has gone down, to make sure 007 is dead. But Bond survives by some ingenuity, of breathing air from one of the tyres. It's actually a nice touch. In past films, he's used a small rebreather device, but without such a gadget here, Bond is having to use his wits to survive. It's a good touch and goes a little way to helping the film feel better, but there's been too many downright weird and plainly stupid moments for that to make up all the ground. But it does help.
We then get a scene that I'm completely convinced was written just to get Walter Gotell, or if you prefer, General Gogol, into the movie. Apart from two other small moments in the film, this is his only substantial appearance in this film, and to be honest, it feels kinda forced in at this point, because there really isn't any other point in the film it could go.
Apparently, Zorin is still regarded by the KGB as being a member of their organisation, but Zorin is convinced he's left all that behind, despite having used an obvious KGB computer link earlier. Zorin did not request permission before his attempt to eliminate 007, even though they think he did. Zorin doesn't seem to care, and we get a face off between the KGB agents and Zorin's forces. I do love Gogol's last line in this sequence. "You will come back to us, comrade. No-one ever leaves the KGB."
This is kinda the halfway point, alright, it's a little short of halfway, but it feels like a dividing line. The first half has felt kinda 'meh'. Not good, not bad, just indifferent really, apart from some slightly and not so slightly cringeworthy moments. Some things like having Bond rely more on his wits in certain situations actually helps, but it feels like too little really, and can't really save this film from poor scriptwriting and some non-sequiturs. Even the quips that there have been, and there haven't been too many, haven't been bad, or good, but at least, they've been on tone. Also, Bond feels a lot more intense here in certain scenes, something we don't normally see a lot of from Roger Moore's Bond. Heck, in some ways, he comes across as very Dalton-esque, in the film before Dalton is cast as Bond. This is similar in fact to Diamonds Are Forever, where Sean Connery does a very Roger Moore style film, before they'd cast Roger.
Having seen so many Bond films, I notice that there's a fairly consistent structure to the films, no matter who is writing or directing. The first hour will always be fairly quick, getting a lot of exposition out of the way, scenes are shorter, there's often little in the way of excess footage in these films, not much filler or padding but when there is filler, it is particularly noticeable. The second hour will be longer scenes, more action, and less compression, what that means is the scenes are more often following on from each other with less time jumped between scenes, or sometimes no time at all. In the first hour, you could have up to a week of real time, compressed to the hour of film. In the second hour, it's more likely to be a day at most that is compressed down to that second hour, and sometimes a lot less than that.
Anyway, back to the plot, and we cut to a meeting that is taking place in a conference room, in a blimp, a large blimp. Okay, that's a little weird, but not totally unbelievable, as daft as that might sound. I mean, these guys including Zorin are operating a secret cartel, but they are working against the might of the Silicon Valley behemoths, so whilst not being good, it's hardly evil either. I do like this in a way, it helps give us a little bit of depth to Max Zorin. Nice touch.
It's in this scene that Zorin reveals his 'dastardly scheme', to end the dominance of Silicon Valley. Okay, that's not much of a scheme, kinda weak actually.
Anyway, one man decides that $100 million is too much money to be part of Project Main Strike, and wants out. He gets dropped, literally out of the craft, and falls into the sea. Gotta say, the dummy that is used here for this gag, is way too floppy, it looks so fake. They surely never thought they could get away with that?
Anyway, Bond is in San Francisco. Wait, how did he get here? How did he know Zorin was coming here? I know that filmmaking is about deciding what parts of the story to tell, and what parts to move right through, but heck, when I said that the Zorin/Gogol scene felt like a dividing line, I didn't mean it quite so literally. It's almost like they've put two films together in one, and not well. I do feel like we've made a big jump here, and this bit feels disconnected from what we saw before.
We meet up here with Chuck Lee of the CIA, played by David Yip, better known to most of us in the UK back then as Detective Sergeant John Ho, aka The Chinese Detective. He had previously been in Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom.
The scene between Bond and Lee is meant to help tie the first half of the film to the second, but to be honest it could be done better. The photos from Bond's ring camera at the party play a part here, as we are introduced to various characters who we saw at the party and get a little more background on them. It turns out Dr Mortner, is actually Dr Hans Glau, and ties back to the Nazis. We get some background, and a little bit of setup here for the next big sequence. We are introduced to a Mr O'Rourke, a local crab fisherman who has an issue with an oil pumping station nearby. Apparently it ruined one of the best crab fishing areas.
There was a scene, that was cut from the movie, where Bond, Lee and O'Rourke check out the pumping station in the midst of a protest by boat. Quite honestly, the scene did nothing story wise, added nothing to the film at all, and was quite rightly cut. Any scene that does nothing for a movie has to be cut and this was one of those scenes that just added nothing really.
So our next scene is the oil pumping station at sunset apparently, or just after sunset. We see a number of guards, but we know that Bond is very good at penetrating heavily guarded facilities. I mean, look what happened with May Day earlier in this film...
Sure enough, Bond makes his entrance unseen. Although it is also clear from this scene that he's not the only one...
This sequence with Bond and the KGB working separately against Zorin is kinda weird and kinda non-sensical. After all, they worked together against a common foe in The Spy Who Loved Me. Or do the KGB actually see their problem as an internal matter? Actually that kind of makes sense too.
In fact, that seems to have been somewhat of a theme here, in every film since For Your Eyes Only. Bond and the KGB, working separately on objectives, usually the same one, sometimes against each other, sometimes not. This has been a theme as much as the animal jump scares that John Glen has done in these films. This theme would incidentally continue into the next film in the film series, The Living Daylights.
I'm not totally sure what to make of it in this film, but all I know is that something feels kinda weird here and that ain't a good thing in this film. There's been too much weird stuff going on in this film, and we actually need to tone the weirdness down by several degrees.
Zorin and co are doing some testing by pumping sea water through their oil pipeline. This is kind of important point here. This plays in to some other stuff later on in the film, which is actually good. A setup that has payoff later on.
We get a slightly stupid scene where Bond checks out a pipe and goes inside, only for it to start sucking in sea water, and pulling him towards the blades. Honestly, the stupidity of this scene is mind-numbing. Bond escapes by using his air tanks to stop the blades and swimming to safety. But a KGB agent gets captured after planting a bomb, which he is later forced to defuse before he is killed, quite brutally, by throwing him down the pipe into the blades.
Meanwhile Bond has escaped undetected and meets up with Pola Ivanova, played by Fiona Fullerton, a KGB agent who was recording material at the same time that Bond was there. There then follows a really awkward, cringeworthy scene in a japanese style spa, with Bond and Ivanova reminiscing on how they first encountered each other. Okay, I get this scene fulfills two roles. One, to move the plot along by having Bond learn about Project Main Strike from the recording Pola made. I get that. I also get that this also establishes that this Bond is old, and is a slight nod to the fact that this is his last film, so having him reminisce about past adventures is a good way of setting that up. But really, this scene should have not have been in the film. There are better ways to have the plot move along, and Pola Ivanova is a character that really didn't need to be here. I like Fiona Fullerton, I have no problem with her being in a Bond film, and heck, I'd have preferred Pola Ivanova to have worked alongside Bond on a mission, not been a supporting character with no real plot relevance.
And to make matters worse, General Gogol is outside, in a car, waiting for her. The head of the KGB, in San Francisco, waiting for an agent. Too many times in this film, there have been moments that have taken me right out of the film, because of their silliness, non-sensicalness, many factors. I don't normally get taken out of the movie this many times in films, except if I'm being critical of a B movie, but normally with a B movie, I'll be watching it purely for the enjoyment of the ludicrousness, not to be carried along by a plot and story that I hope is going to be keeping my interest up throughout the movie.
And A View To A Kill, does feel like a B movie, the B movie of the James Bond franchise. If you forget about the story, and just go with the action, the quips, the individual moments, without being too focused on the story and the plot, it is enjoyable, just like a good B movie should be. But for me, this should be an A film, where the story, the dialogue, the plot all make sense and you're able to follow the story of the film, without wondering "Why the hell have they just done that?" That's not something I can do here. Even Moonraker wasn't quite this much like a B movie, although it did have certain moments that were very much out of a B movie, but this film does stray way too much into B movie territory. Yes, there are good moments that are way better than any B movie, but there are too few of them to rescue it from the B movie 'quicksand of doom'!
Anyway, we get through the necessary plot points, and we cut to San Francisco where Bond is posing as a journalist from the London Financial Times, called James Stock. Okay, that is just lazy. James Stock, of the Financial Times, a paper that covers the "Stock" market??? The only stocks going up in this film are the laughing stocks...
He is interviewing a guy, who I think at the start of this scene is the Mayor, because he behaves and talks very much like a politician, but he is Stacey's boss at the Division Of Oil & Mines. Really, it's not that important, it plays into stuff later, but I really dislike this whole scene, it feels like a waste of screen time really. It does allow Bond to see Stacey briefly talking to the Mayor character. Bond hangs around at City Hall, and waits for Stacy to leave before following her. We arrive at an old style house in a rural location, and Bond gains entrance. We then get the most ludicrous gadget of the movie so far, a card that is slid in to unlock a window, an old style window. Jeez, I'm taken out of the movie again, by something so small and insignificant really, but so glaring an error that you can just can't not be taken out of the movie by it.
For such a big house, the inside is surprisingly empty with very little actual stuff at all. In fact, the only place this house really seems to have anything is a bedroom, the kitchen and the bathroom, and that's it. Stacey ends up pointing a shot gun at Bond, but some Zorin stooges turn up to intimidate Stacey and Bond and Stacey fight them off in a not bad fight sequence, but again, too little too late.
There is one rather glaring error in this sequence though. The shotgun fires 4 times before Bond discovers it's loaded with Rock Salt. It then fires 2 more times right at the end of the sequence. Sorry, but that is just complete bunkum. There is no way you could get it to fire with just rock salt in it. Surprisingly though, this doesn't take me straight out of the movie again, partially because the actual fight sequence is well shot, well edited, has a good pace to it. It's probably one of the best sequences in the movie, but again the scripting here leaves much to be desired.
We then get a really odd sequence where Bond cooks a Quiche for Stacey and himself. It helps to have quieter moments in between the action, and certainly this scene gives us some backstory for Stacey and Zorin, and actually adds a little bit more to the Bond character, he can actually cook for himself and not badly either, but again, it just feels a little too weird here, and the last thing this film needs is more weirdness.
The other noticeably weird thing, is Bond doesn't bed her, not right away, this is a little strange, but also good, and doesn't make me cringe, so I'm kinda happy to go with it. My goodness, he's already bedded 3 women in this film, and he will bed Stacey later, but at this point, I'm good with him not bedding her, it gives us a new angle.
We then get some minor stuff with a small earth tremor, Stacey being fired from her job at City Hall, and meeting up with Chuck Lee of the CIA, most of this is actually pretty irrelevant, except for a small moment, where Chuck is killed in his car. Bond doesn't know about this, as he only see Chuck's car driving away.
Bond and Stacey infiltrate City Hall and discover where Main Strike is, only to be disturbed in their investigations by Zorin and May Day, setting up the whole City Fire on Fire sequence. Howe, the man who fired Stacey, and the same guy Bond interviewed earlier, is killed by Zorin. Why he does this, I don't know. Nothing about this bit makes any sense.
The whole sequence from the moment the fire actually starts is genuinely tense and exciting, it's well shot, well edited, but again, it's trying to rescue this film from the depths of silliness and craziness that we've already been subjected to, and we can't really rescue a film like this, the best we can do is just prevent it from falling further, and maybe make up a little ground.
There is a weird sequence, where some of the local police have managed to get ahold of Bond's gun, that was left behind in Howe's office. How were they allowed to be in the building whilst it was on fire? This makes no sense at all. The scripting here is horrible.
Bond and Stacey have to make an escape and Bond commandeers a fire truck, and the local police give pursuit. The whole sequence feels like it's out of a Keystone Kops movie, or Police Academy. The main police character is vaguely reminiscent of Sherrif J W Pepper. We don't know his name, he's just a Police Captain on the credits, and he makes another short appearance later, but as enjoyable as Sheriff J W Pepper was, this, whilst being funny, just feels weak and lazy and not well written at all.
Anyway, we cut to somewhere out in the wilds of California, at something that looks like a quarry or mine. I guess this is Main Strike, with Bond still driving the fire truck. Bond commandeers another truck, this one carrying explosives. Bond and Stacey manage to secretly get inside the mine, and we get introduced to the setting for our big set piece. It really looks impressive. To think this is not actually an inside of a mine but only a movie set, is a credit to the talents of Peter Lamont and the movie's Art Department. The only thing slightly amiss here is the "table"/display that shows how the plot would work if Zorin achieved his aims. It just feels too sci-fi for this, but it's not the biggest thing wrong with this film, and doesn't take me right out of it, unlike other things in this film, so I give it a pass, but considering how much else I can't give a pass to, it just adds to the whole "out-of-syncness" that this film has.
Bond and Stacey are discovered but manage to escape, with May Day, Jenny Flex and someone else who we were never introduced to, but saw briefly a couple of times, in pursuit. May Day sends her colleagues down an easier route, whilst she follows the same route Bond and Stacey took. Zorin then floods the fault, and then shoots everybody who isn't himself or Scarpine. Meanwhile May Day, who was in pursuit of Bond and Stacey catches up to them and we get a small confrontation, but May Day and Bond end up falling into the water, whilst Stacey makes it out. Zorin then goes to a portakabin which converts into a blimp. At this point, I think I'm going to give up trying to explain the holes in this plot, there's been more holes in this plot than there is in the average block of Swiss Cheese. It seems that Zorin's inner circle is himself, Scarpine and Mortner/Glau.
Bond and May Day somehow manage to survive the flood and manage to take the bombs that was planted earlier by Zorin and company, out of the explosive filled geological lock, Minor point here, the explosives are AMFO, so they always need a blasting agent to set them off.
Bond and May Day place it on a trolley to roll it out of the mine, but the brake slips. May Day sacrifices herself to get the bomb out of the mine. This is quite a moving moment actually, and genuinely does help to raise the film out of the badness it has mired in. Stacey then gets kidnapped by blimp. Seriously? Bond grabs onto a mooring rope, and hangs on for a long time really, much longer than he'd be able to in real life, and Zorin heads for the Golden Gate Bridge. Not really sure what Zorin is trying to do here, but Bond manages to use the mooring rope to tie the blimp to the bridge. Stacey helps by attacking Zorin, and the blimp's cabin crashes into the bridge structure.
Mortner is out, Zorin is in his seat, but Scarpine and Stacey are floored in the crash. Zorin orders Scarpine to go get him, meaning Bond, in a moment that channels the previous film in this series, Octopussy. But Stacey knocks him out with a fire extinguisher. Zorin then decides that if you want something done, you gotta do it yourself.
The final fight between Bond and Zorin is kinda weak actually. It's meant to be tense, the music is telling us that, but the actual fight itself is poor, and I can't blame the stunt people either, it's really difficult to have a believable fight on a pipe that is only a few feet wide. I have to put this down to the scripting again.
Anyway, Zorin falls of the bridge. We get a nice character moment where Zorin laughs at the seeming ludicrousness of his own destiny, which probably actually in a way kind of sums up the film.
Mortner comes to, and tries shooting Bond, but unsurprisingly is a poor shot. So he gets some dynamite, as though that's going to help. Bond cuts the rope with the axe that Zorin bought into the fight, and the blimp moves away from the bridge causing Mortner to drop the explosive in the cabin. Scarpine and Mortner fight over getting rid of the dynamite, before they and the blimp is blown up.
Gogol shows to M and the Minister of Defence a medal that is to be awarded to James Bond. The Order of Lenin. A rare thing for a non-Soviet citizen. Bond is revealed at this point to be missing, and we get a last shot of Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny, a nice touch, and the movie closes with Q and his robot dog, discovering that Bond is alive and making love to Stacey in a shower. Okay, we're going to end the movie like that?
THE VILLAINS
I really have to describe that Zorin and May Day are the main villains of the piece, even though May Day turns to Bond's side later on. They are memorable villains, very well played by Christopher Wallken and Grace Jones. I remember hearing about her casting when I was younger and I had serious doubts about her acting ability. But she pulls off the role very well, without being too cartoonish, which this film kinda flirts with more than once.
Walken is great as Zorin. He is surprisingly calm and nonchalant at certain points like shooting W G Howe, and shooting all the men, and plays the psychotics of the character well. I just feel sorry for the fact that these characters are hamstrung by a really poor script.
THE BOND GIRL/WOMAN
Stacey Sutton is definitely more in the Solitaire mould than in the Anya Amasova mould of Bond Girl. It is fair to say that Tanya Roberts gets quite a pass as a geologist, mainly because she doesn't really have any really stupid dialogue to say, unlike Denise Richards in The World Is Not Enough.
Stacey's screams are annoying and she really doesn't appear that much in the film. Honestly there is more time spent in the film without her than with her. I think she is utilised enough to make her a presence, but not too much that she becomes totally annoying. She's not my favourite Bond girl by a long way, but she's not the worst either.
THE HENCHMEN
Whilst I'm pleased with the main villains here, the rest of the crew feels very weak. Scarpine is not much of a henchman. He doesn't have any real character to him. Jenny Flex is okay when we meet her but she really doesn't have anything more to do in the film, other than make silent appearances, she really doesn't do much.
The woman I mentioned earlier who was with Jenny in the mine when the flood happened, is called in the credit Pan Ho, and she's another henchman, but again, she isn't utilised well in the film. She has one line of dialogue, and that's it. She's silent after that. I think it's nice that we have female henchmen in that respect in this film, but they are used appallingly, and not allowed to have any real character to them.
Mortner is kinda weird here and I think is meant to be a mad scientist and father figure for Max Zorin, but again he doesn't have anything really that helps you give real insight into his character. He has one moment when he calls out to Max just before Max falls off the bridge, but again, too little to really make a difference.
The last henchman here is Bob Conley, the geologist who Zorin employs. Zorin kills him in the mine. I really again don't get a hell of a lot of character out of this character, we're given very little for the supporting cast here, nothing to help us understand their motivations, their reasons for being, not even much about their character. Ultimately, these guys are little more than props in the film, Mcguffins really, just designed to move the plot along at certain points, and not much more than that.
STUNT AND ACTION SEQUENCES.
I have to mention this here, because once again, like Moonraker, the action sequences aren't quite up to par, and mostly it's because of the writing. May Day's leap off the Eiffel Tower is a stunning moment, but in one shot, you can see the platform that was used for the stuntman to jump off of, and that moment takes you out of the film.
The fights are generally also weaker, mainly because of Roger Moore's age in this film. It would look ludicrous if Moore was fighting people half his age, so most of the fights are with older guys, but it just looks silly.
The sequence in the pipe that I mentioned earlier was particularly stupid and really bad, and the horse racing sequence where Zorin tries to dispose of Bond was also very lame. I almost wonder if the producers set themselves a challenge to have as many different kinds of action sequences in one film as it was possible to do, and it didn't really work at all.
THE SCRIPTING
I have to mention this separately, even though I've mentioned it a lot in the writing up of the plot, but it bears repeating once more. This was an incredibly badly scripted film. There was one huge plot hole, in getting Bond from France, which I believe is where the stables were, to Bond arriving in San Francisco. That hole is practically Grand Canyon sized, and yet most people just seem to not notice it.
There are other points where you can tell the writing between plot points is very weak, badly covering up what could have been plot holes, but the writing is so bad that you almost think that the plot holes might not have been noticed by most people, considering how few people mention the Grand Canyon sized plot hole of Bond arriving in San Francisco and knowing Zorin is there, despite having had nothing in the previous part of the film to tell Bond that San Francisco was where he was going.
And there's the moments like James Stock of the Financial Times, and San Francisco's almost Keystone Kops-like police force. Some of that is just lazy writing and whilst you might get away with one of those moments in a film, any more than that, you are pretty much asking for trouble.
The script is the meant to be the blueprint for the film, or at least, a good starting point, a solid foundation, but here, the script is undermining the whole film and dragging it down.
OVERALL
I know I've been very critical of the film, but it is more enjoyable than any of the ones I've reviewed up to now. It has a sense of being aware that it's not a great film, and has some fun, and you can go along with that and enjoy the film for the ride that it is, but overall, it's not a good film at all. And I think Roger Moore knew that, as he retired from the role. Some good characters, some good moments, but let down by a poor script, and didn't have any major high points to help raise the film out of the mire. What high points there were were still undermined by too many factors to make them really great, but they were good nonetheless.
If I want to watch a Roger Moore Bond film, I have 4 films I will go to before this, and they are higher up the list, and we have some way to go before we hit the first of them.
Before that, we hit number 19 next time, and the first Pierce Brosnan film on the list, and it will probably as no surprise to you, when I reveal which of his films I rank as the worst...
Okay, at this point, apart from the robot dog and the California Girls music in the pre-title sequence, everything seems pretty normal so far, but it's from this point onwards, that everything starts getting a little weird.
During dinner, they are treated to some 'entertainment', and I use the term loosely, which allows May Day to come into the restaurant in disguise, and kill Aubergine, using a poisoned butterfly prop of some kind. Don't ask me to explain it really, I don't really get it.
This leads into a chase sequence up the Eiffel Tower, which is quite well shot considering all the obstructions and structure. But I have to admit, running up the Eiffel Tower to escape Bond is just about the dumbest move you can make.
Which gives me an excuse to talk about the action sequence direction here. Arthur Wooster was doing his third Bond film as second unit director, so what's happening with the action sequences here isn't being done by someone new, and also the writing team of Michael G Wilson and Richard Maibaum were also on their third film, so everything should have been coming together. Instead, we seem to have a sequence that seems to have been put together purely for the purpose of having someone parachute off the Eiffel Tower.
In story terms, it makes no sense how we get to that point. If I'm an assassin, who's just killed someone, I am not going to go running up the Eiffel Tower, to get away from a pursuer, you are effectively cornering yourself. You will run wherever you can, to make an effective ground escape.
So that is my first problem with the sequence.
The second is the taxi part of this sequence. The sequence plays far too comedically, especially at the start with the driver that Bond ejected from the car, running after it. His reactions are way over the top, and badly dubbed too, which doesn't help.
At the end of the chase sequence, Bond is arrested, by what looks like a couple of chefs with meat cleavers. Yet, we saw him fall into a wedding cake. You don't need meat cleavers for a wedding cake...
Anyway, there was a sequence cut from the film here, where M arrives to bail out Bond. Having watched the sequence, it is intended to be a light hearted sequence, and we get a guest appearance of Red Grant's garrotte watch from From Russia With Love, which would have been nice to see, nice touch of continuity, but overall, the sequence is probably better out. John Glen says it more resembled something out of a Pink Panther film, than a James Bond film, and whilst the guy playing the French policeman here is no Clouseau, it does feel somewhat wrong in tone. It was just one of many moments in this film that were wrong in tone and this was rightfully cut. To me it felt like a scene out of a Bond parody, rather than an official James Bond film.
So, the next scene we see is Bond being driven away from the police station, and being reminded that this is meant to be a discreet operation, and arranging with Sir Godfrey to attend a sale at Zorin's stables.
Bond and Sir Godfrey go undercover to the event, Bond under the name St John Smith, pronounced Sinjon Smythe, and we are introduced to Scarpine, head of security, played by Patrick Bauchau in his first major Hollywood production. He makes a good henchman here, but nothing special. There isn't really anything about him that makes him stand out.
We're also introduced to Jenny Flex, played by Alison Doody. She really only has this scene where she speaks at all, and a couple of shots elsewhere and that's it. It's almost pointless to introduce her here, other than for a cheap gag, and really that's all she gets. This is her first role in her career, and she would later make a more substantial appearance in Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade.
We get a nice little moment where Bond and Tibbett find a bug in their room, and their interaction actually in this film is one of the highlights. Patrick MacNee is a great actor, if you never saw his John Steed in The Avengers, you missed someone who was in many ways, a pre-cursor for the film version of James Bond, especially how he developed from Goldfinger onwards. It makes the Ralph Feinnes version in that disastrous late 90s film, look all the worse. In a way, it's kind of appropriate here to have him as part of the Bond universe, you almost want it to be James Bond and John Steed together, rather than Bond and Tibbett, but the moments with them are good and helps raise the film up a bit. After the farce of the chase in Paris, this feels much more Bondian.
There's also some wonderful solo moments with Tibbett with his investigation of Pegasus' stable. It's nice that we get a little bit, just a flavour, of John Steed in this film, even if he isn't called John Steed.
As a helicopter arrives at the mansion, we are introduced here to Stacey Sutton, played by Tanya Roberts, although we know nothing about her at this point. She could be another wealthy horse owner, or something else entirely, we really don't know. There's a party scene, which I know is meant to help move the plot along, but really, it just feels like an excuse to have Bond in a tuxedo, it really doesn't do much for me. I'd prefer a different way of him finding out who all these people are, than photos taken with a camera the size of a ring, that's just ludicrous, even for today's technology, so back in 1985, it was even more ludicrous. We also get a moment where Bond meets Zorin. Like the rest of the party scene, it's weak and really feels slightly contrived.
Bond also meets Stacey Sutton here, but doesn't get her first name, he only knows her as S. Sutton from a cheque that he managed to obtain via some strange photocopying device. Again, it feels weak and isn't even referenced later on.
That night, Tibbett goes to check out the stable where Pegasus disappeared from earlier, only to encounter Bond in a strangely suspect way. Anyway, they discover an underground lab, where the doctor, who we discovered at the party was called Dr Mortner, has performed surgery on Pegasus to implant a small capsule of natural horse steroid into Pegasus, controlled by a remote device, that could fit into the tip of a jockey's whip, or a cane.
Anyway, a security team discovers the stable has been breached and go down to check it out, but beneath the lab is something even weirder. It looks like a factory/warehouse, where boxes of microchips are being hoarded by Zorin. This is never explained in the film, why he is doing this. We can figure it out based on other things in the plot, but it's a setup without a payoff, and I'm afraid brings the film down a bit.
Anyway, the security team find their way down to this area, and a fight breaks out. It's not as bad as the cable car fight in Moonraker, but it's pretty weak. Neither Roger Moore nor Patrick MacNee were young guys at this point, and the whole fight feels very contrived as though the filmmakers are having to work around this, and it doesn't make for a great fight sequence. Not bad, but not great, just okay really.
We're about 2 reels in and there's been nothing really that was particularly good, and a couple of moments that have been really cringeworthy, and some slightly non-sensical things, but nothing that jumped out at me as particularly awful.
Anyway, we get a sequence here that really feels awful. May Day is training Max Zorin in martial arts. Okay, I guess I can go with this. It kind of presents her as maybe a bodyguard-type, but doesn't really fit in with the outfit she wore at the race. An outfit like that one didn't really say bodyguard. But Zorin ends up on top and looks like he's turned on by this, and he kisses her. It's weirdness without purpose, really. What is this scene in the film for? Is it meant to show that he's not quite right in the head? There's better ways of doing that.
Anyway, Zorin gets notified of a break in at the plant, and they decide to check in on St John Smith. Finding him not there, May Day remembers that he was the man chasing her at the Eiffel Tower. Obviously facial recognition and memory were not things the good Dr Mortner thought were important... you'll understand what I'm saying later...
May Day goes to get properly dressed and discovers St John Smith/Bond in her bed waiting for her. This is perhaps the most cringeworthy part of this film yet. Bond beds May Day, instead of May Day immediately trying to kill Bond? Holy non-sequitur, Batman! Oops, sorry, wrong franchise...
Next morning, Bond meets up with Zorin, with Zorin pretending to be searching for a horse in his database. In fact he's using a KGB computer link to discover St John Smith's real identity. Bond sends Tibbett into town to get a message to London, whilst he goes riding with Zorin. Err, okay...
Tibbett is killed in a car wash. It's a shame really that he dies here, it was good seeing Moore and MacNee together like this. Meanwhile, Zorin tries to eliminate Bond using many elaborate traps on a practice course. Again, this makes little sense. This really is nothing more than an elaborate excuse to have Bond riding a horse. Bond spies the Rolls Royce and thinks he's about to escape, not realising that Tibbett is dead and they plan a similar fate for him. Bond is knocked unconscious. Why they don't kill him there, I don't know, but oh well. They drive the rolls to a lake, and May Day pushes the car into the lake. Okay, so she's super strong, we've seen that before various henchmen, but this just feels tired now.
I gotta give them some credit though for actually hanging around once the car has gone down, to make sure 007 is dead. But Bond survives by some ingenuity, of breathing air from one of the tyres. It's actually a nice touch. In past films, he's used a small rebreather device, but without such a gadget here, Bond is having to use his wits to survive. It's a good touch and goes a little way to helping the film feel better, but there's been too many downright weird and plainly stupid moments for that to make up all the ground. But it does help.
We then get a scene that I'm completely convinced was written just to get Walter Gotell, or if you prefer, General Gogol, into the movie. Apart from two other small moments in the film, this is his only substantial appearance in this film, and to be honest, it feels kinda forced in at this point, because there really isn't any other point in the film it could go.
Apparently, Zorin is still regarded by the KGB as being a member of their organisation, but Zorin is convinced he's left all that behind, despite having used an obvious KGB computer link earlier. Zorin did not request permission before his attempt to eliminate 007, even though they think he did. Zorin doesn't seem to care, and we get a face off between the KGB agents and Zorin's forces. I do love Gogol's last line in this sequence. "You will come back to us, comrade. No-one ever leaves the KGB."
This is kinda the halfway point, alright, it's a little short of halfway, but it feels like a dividing line. The first half has felt kinda 'meh'. Not good, not bad, just indifferent really, apart from some slightly and not so slightly cringeworthy moments. Some things like having Bond rely more on his wits in certain situations actually helps, but it feels like too little really, and can't really save this film from poor scriptwriting and some non-sequiturs. Even the quips that there have been, and there haven't been too many, haven't been bad, or good, but at least, they've been on tone. Also, Bond feels a lot more intense here in certain scenes, something we don't normally see a lot of from Roger Moore's Bond. Heck, in some ways, he comes across as very Dalton-esque, in the film before Dalton is cast as Bond. This is similar in fact to Diamonds Are Forever, where Sean Connery does a very Roger Moore style film, before they'd cast Roger.
Having seen so many Bond films, I notice that there's a fairly consistent structure to the films, no matter who is writing or directing. The first hour will always be fairly quick, getting a lot of exposition out of the way, scenes are shorter, there's often little in the way of excess footage in these films, not much filler or padding but when there is filler, it is particularly noticeable. The second hour will be longer scenes, more action, and less compression, what that means is the scenes are more often following on from each other with less time jumped between scenes, or sometimes no time at all. In the first hour, you could have up to a week of real time, compressed to the hour of film. In the second hour, it's more likely to be a day at most that is compressed down to that second hour, and sometimes a lot less than that.
Anyway, back to the plot, and we cut to a meeting that is taking place in a conference room, in a blimp, a large blimp. Okay, that's a little weird, but not totally unbelievable, as daft as that might sound. I mean, these guys including Zorin are operating a secret cartel, but they are working against the might of the Silicon Valley behemoths, so whilst not being good, it's hardly evil either. I do like this in a way, it helps give us a little bit of depth to Max Zorin. Nice touch.
It's in this scene that Zorin reveals his 'dastardly scheme', to end the dominance of Silicon Valley. Okay, that's not much of a scheme, kinda weak actually.
Anyway, one man decides that $100 million is too much money to be part of Project Main Strike, and wants out. He gets dropped, literally out of the craft, and falls into the sea. Gotta say, the dummy that is used here for this gag, is way too floppy, it looks so fake. They surely never thought they could get away with that?
Anyway, Bond is in San Francisco. Wait, how did he get here? How did he know Zorin was coming here? I know that filmmaking is about deciding what parts of the story to tell, and what parts to move right through, but heck, when I said that the Zorin/Gogol scene felt like a dividing line, I didn't mean it quite so literally. It's almost like they've put two films together in one, and not well. I do feel like we've made a big jump here, and this bit feels disconnected from what we saw before.
We meet up here with Chuck Lee of the CIA, played by David Yip, better known to most of us in the UK back then as Detective Sergeant John Ho, aka The Chinese Detective. He had previously been in Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom.
The scene between Bond and Lee is meant to help tie the first half of the film to the second, but to be honest it could be done better. The photos from Bond's ring camera at the party play a part here, as we are introduced to various characters who we saw at the party and get a little more background on them. It turns out Dr Mortner, is actually Dr Hans Glau, and ties back to the Nazis. We get some background, and a little bit of setup here for the next big sequence. We are introduced to a Mr O'Rourke, a local crab fisherman who has an issue with an oil pumping station nearby. Apparently it ruined one of the best crab fishing areas.
There was a scene, that was cut from the movie, where Bond, Lee and O'Rourke check out the pumping station in the midst of a protest by boat. Quite honestly, the scene did nothing story wise, added nothing to the film at all, and was quite rightly cut. Any scene that does nothing for a movie has to be cut and this was one of those scenes that just added nothing really.
So our next scene is the oil pumping station at sunset apparently, or just after sunset. We see a number of guards, but we know that Bond is very good at penetrating heavily guarded facilities. I mean, look what happened with May Day earlier in this film...
Sure enough, Bond makes his entrance unseen. Although it is also clear from this scene that he's not the only one...
This sequence with Bond and the KGB working separately against Zorin is kinda weird and kinda non-sensical. After all, they worked together against a common foe in The Spy Who Loved Me. Or do the KGB actually see their problem as an internal matter? Actually that kind of makes sense too.
In fact, that seems to have been somewhat of a theme here, in every film since For Your Eyes Only. Bond and the KGB, working separately on objectives, usually the same one, sometimes against each other, sometimes not. This has been a theme as much as the animal jump scares that John Glen has done in these films. This theme would incidentally continue into the next film in the film series, The Living Daylights.
I'm not totally sure what to make of it in this film, but all I know is that something feels kinda weird here and that ain't a good thing in this film. There's been too much weird stuff going on in this film, and we actually need to tone the weirdness down by several degrees.
Zorin and co are doing some testing by pumping sea water through their oil pipeline. This is kind of important point here. This plays in to some other stuff later on in the film, which is actually good. A setup that has payoff later on.
We get a slightly stupid scene where Bond checks out a pipe and goes inside, only for it to start sucking in sea water, and pulling him towards the blades. Honestly, the stupidity of this scene is mind-numbing. Bond escapes by using his air tanks to stop the blades and swimming to safety. But a KGB agent gets captured after planting a bomb, which he is later forced to defuse before he is killed, quite brutally, by throwing him down the pipe into the blades.
Meanwhile Bond has escaped undetected and meets up with Pola Ivanova, played by Fiona Fullerton, a KGB agent who was recording material at the same time that Bond was there. There then follows a really awkward, cringeworthy scene in a japanese style spa, with Bond and Ivanova reminiscing on how they first encountered each other. Okay, I get this scene fulfills two roles. One, to move the plot along by having Bond learn about Project Main Strike from the recording Pola made. I get that. I also get that this also establishes that this Bond is old, and is a slight nod to the fact that this is his last film, so having him reminisce about past adventures is a good way of setting that up. But really, this scene should have not have been in the film. There are better ways to have the plot move along, and Pola Ivanova is a character that really didn't need to be here. I like Fiona Fullerton, I have no problem with her being in a Bond film, and heck, I'd have preferred Pola Ivanova to have worked alongside Bond on a mission, not been a supporting character with no real plot relevance.
And to make matters worse, General Gogol is outside, in a car, waiting for her. The head of the KGB, in San Francisco, waiting for an agent. Too many times in this film, there have been moments that have taken me right out of the film, because of their silliness, non-sensicalness, many factors. I don't normally get taken out of the movie this many times in films, except if I'm being critical of a B movie, but normally with a B movie, I'll be watching it purely for the enjoyment of the ludicrousness, not to be carried along by a plot and story that I hope is going to be keeping my interest up throughout the movie.
And A View To A Kill, does feel like a B movie, the B movie of the James Bond franchise. If you forget about the story, and just go with the action, the quips, the individual moments, without being too focused on the story and the plot, it is enjoyable, just like a good B movie should be. But for me, this should be an A film, where the story, the dialogue, the plot all make sense and you're able to follow the story of the film, without wondering "Why the hell have they just done that?" That's not something I can do here. Even Moonraker wasn't quite this much like a B movie, although it did have certain moments that were very much out of a B movie, but this film does stray way too much into B movie territory. Yes, there are good moments that are way better than any B movie, but there are too few of them to rescue it from the B movie 'quicksand of doom'!
Anyway, we get through the necessary plot points, and we cut to San Francisco where Bond is posing as a journalist from the London Financial Times, called James Stock. Okay, that is just lazy. James Stock, of the Financial Times, a paper that covers the "Stock" market??? The only stocks going up in this film are the laughing stocks...
He is interviewing a guy, who I think at the start of this scene is the Mayor, because he behaves and talks very much like a politician, but he is Stacey's boss at the Division Of Oil & Mines. Really, it's not that important, it plays into stuff later, but I really dislike this whole scene, it feels like a waste of screen time really. It does allow Bond to see Stacey briefly talking to the Mayor character. Bond hangs around at City Hall, and waits for Stacy to leave before following her. We arrive at an old style house in a rural location, and Bond gains entrance. We then get the most ludicrous gadget of the movie so far, a card that is slid in to unlock a window, an old style window. Jeez, I'm taken out of the movie again, by something so small and insignificant really, but so glaring an error that you can just can't not be taken out of the movie by it.
For such a big house, the inside is surprisingly empty with very little actual stuff at all. In fact, the only place this house really seems to have anything is a bedroom, the kitchen and the bathroom, and that's it. Stacey ends up pointing a shot gun at Bond, but some Zorin stooges turn up to intimidate Stacey and Bond and Stacey fight them off in a not bad fight sequence, but again, too little too late.
There is one rather glaring error in this sequence though. The shotgun fires 4 times before Bond discovers it's loaded with Rock Salt. It then fires 2 more times right at the end of the sequence. Sorry, but that is just complete bunkum. There is no way you could get it to fire with just rock salt in it. Surprisingly though, this doesn't take me straight out of the movie again, partially because the actual fight sequence is well shot, well edited, has a good pace to it. It's probably one of the best sequences in the movie, but again the scripting here leaves much to be desired.
We then get a really odd sequence where Bond cooks a Quiche for Stacey and himself. It helps to have quieter moments in between the action, and certainly this scene gives us some backstory for Stacey and Zorin, and actually adds a little bit more to the Bond character, he can actually cook for himself and not badly either, but again, it just feels a little too weird here, and the last thing this film needs is more weirdness.
The other noticeably weird thing, is Bond doesn't bed her, not right away, this is a little strange, but also good, and doesn't make me cringe, so I'm kinda happy to go with it. My goodness, he's already bedded 3 women in this film, and he will bed Stacey later, but at this point, I'm good with him not bedding her, it gives us a new angle.
We then get some minor stuff with a small earth tremor, Stacey being fired from her job at City Hall, and meeting up with Chuck Lee of the CIA, most of this is actually pretty irrelevant, except for a small moment, where Chuck is killed in his car. Bond doesn't know about this, as he only see Chuck's car driving away.
Bond and Stacey infiltrate City Hall and discover where Main Strike is, only to be disturbed in their investigations by Zorin and May Day, setting up the whole City Fire on Fire sequence. Howe, the man who fired Stacey, and the same guy Bond interviewed earlier, is killed by Zorin. Why he does this, I don't know. Nothing about this bit makes any sense.
The whole sequence from the moment the fire actually starts is genuinely tense and exciting, it's well shot, well edited, but again, it's trying to rescue this film from the depths of silliness and craziness that we've already been subjected to, and we can't really rescue a film like this, the best we can do is just prevent it from falling further, and maybe make up a little ground.
There is a weird sequence, where some of the local police have managed to get ahold of Bond's gun, that was left behind in Howe's office. How were they allowed to be in the building whilst it was on fire? This makes no sense at all. The scripting here is horrible.
Bond and Stacey have to make an escape and Bond commandeers a fire truck, and the local police give pursuit. The whole sequence feels like it's out of a Keystone Kops movie, or Police Academy. The main police character is vaguely reminiscent of Sherrif J W Pepper. We don't know his name, he's just a Police Captain on the credits, and he makes another short appearance later, but as enjoyable as Sheriff J W Pepper was, this, whilst being funny, just feels weak and lazy and not well written at all.
Anyway, we cut to somewhere out in the wilds of California, at something that looks like a quarry or mine. I guess this is Main Strike, with Bond still driving the fire truck. Bond commandeers another truck, this one carrying explosives. Bond and Stacey manage to secretly get inside the mine, and we get introduced to the setting for our big set piece. It really looks impressive. To think this is not actually an inside of a mine but only a movie set, is a credit to the talents of Peter Lamont and the movie's Art Department. The only thing slightly amiss here is the "table"/display that shows how the plot would work if Zorin achieved his aims. It just feels too sci-fi for this, but it's not the biggest thing wrong with this film, and doesn't take me right out of it, unlike other things in this film, so I give it a pass, but considering how much else I can't give a pass to, it just adds to the whole "out-of-syncness" that this film has.
Bond and Stacey are discovered but manage to escape, with May Day, Jenny Flex and someone else who we were never introduced to, but saw briefly a couple of times, in pursuit. May Day sends her colleagues down an easier route, whilst she follows the same route Bond and Stacey took. Zorin then floods the fault, and then shoots everybody who isn't himself or Scarpine. Meanwhile May Day, who was in pursuit of Bond and Stacey catches up to them and we get a small confrontation, but May Day and Bond end up falling into the water, whilst Stacey makes it out. Zorin then goes to a portakabin which converts into a blimp. At this point, I think I'm going to give up trying to explain the holes in this plot, there's been more holes in this plot than there is in the average block of Swiss Cheese. It seems that Zorin's inner circle is himself, Scarpine and Mortner/Glau.
Bond and May Day somehow manage to survive the flood and manage to take the bombs that was planted earlier by Zorin and company, out of the explosive filled geological lock, Minor point here, the explosives are AMFO, so they always need a blasting agent to set them off.
Bond and May Day place it on a trolley to roll it out of the mine, but the brake slips. May Day sacrifices herself to get the bomb out of the mine. This is quite a moving moment actually, and genuinely does help to raise the film out of the badness it has mired in. Stacey then gets kidnapped by blimp. Seriously? Bond grabs onto a mooring rope, and hangs on for a long time really, much longer than he'd be able to in real life, and Zorin heads for the Golden Gate Bridge. Not really sure what Zorin is trying to do here, but Bond manages to use the mooring rope to tie the blimp to the bridge. Stacey helps by attacking Zorin, and the blimp's cabin crashes into the bridge structure.
Mortner is out, Zorin is in his seat, but Scarpine and Stacey are floored in the crash. Zorin orders Scarpine to go get him, meaning Bond, in a moment that channels the previous film in this series, Octopussy. But Stacey knocks him out with a fire extinguisher. Zorin then decides that if you want something done, you gotta do it yourself.
The final fight between Bond and Zorin is kinda weak actually. It's meant to be tense, the music is telling us that, but the actual fight itself is poor, and I can't blame the stunt people either, it's really difficult to have a believable fight on a pipe that is only a few feet wide. I have to put this down to the scripting again.
Anyway, Zorin falls of the bridge. We get a nice character moment where Zorin laughs at the seeming ludicrousness of his own destiny, which probably actually in a way kind of sums up the film.
Mortner comes to, and tries shooting Bond, but unsurprisingly is a poor shot. So he gets some dynamite, as though that's going to help. Bond cuts the rope with the axe that Zorin bought into the fight, and the blimp moves away from the bridge causing Mortner to drop the explosive in the cabin. Scarpine and Mortner fight over getting rid of the dynamite, before they and the blimp is blown up.
Gogol shows to M and the Minister of Defence a medal that is to be awarded to James Bond. The Order of Lenin. A rare thing for a non-Soviet citizen. Bond is revealed at this point to be missing, and we get a last shot of Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny, a nice touch, and the movie closes with Q and his robot dog, discovering that Bond is alive and making love to Stacey in a shower. Okay, we're going to end the movie like that?
THE VILLAINS
I really have to describe that Zorin and May Day are the main villains of the piece, even though May Day turns to Bond's side later on. They are memorable villains, very well played by Christopher Wallken and Grace Jones. I remember hearing about her casting when I was younger and I had serious doubts about her acting ability. But she pulls off the role very well, without being too cartoonish, which this film kinda flirts with more than once.
Walken is great as Zorin. He is surprisingly calm and nonchalant at certain points like shooting W G Howe, and shooting all the men, and plays the psychotics of the character well. I just feel sorry for the fact that these characters are hamstrung by a really poor script.
THE BOND GIRL/WOMAN
Stacey Sutton is definitely more in the Solitaire mould than in the Anya Amasova mould of Bond Girl. It is fair to say that Tanya Roberts gets quite a pass as a geologist, mainly because she doesn't really have any really stupid dialogue to say, unlike Denise Richards in The World Is Not Enough.
Stacey's screams are annoying and she really doesn't appear that much in the film. Honestly there is more time spent in the film without her than with her. I think she is utilised enough to make her a presence, but not too much that she becomes totally annoying. She's not my favourite Bond girl by a long way, but she's not the worst either.
THE HENCHMEN
Whilst I'm pleased with the main villains here, the rest of the crew feels very weak. Scarpine is not much of a henchman. He doesn't have any real character to him. Jenny Flex is okay when we meet her but she really doesn't have anything more to do in the film, other than make silent appearances, she really doesn't do much.
The woman I mentioned earlier who was with Jenny in the mine when the flood happened, is called in the credit Pan Ho, and she's another henchman, but again, she isn't utilised well in the film. She has one line of dialogue, and that's it. She's silent after that. I think it's nice that we have female henchmen in that respect in this film, but they are used appallingly, and not allowed to have any real character to them.
Mortner is kinda weird here and I think is meant to be a mad scientist and father figure for Max Zorin, but again he doesn't have anything really that helps you give real insight into his character. He has one moment when he calls out to Max just before Max falls off the bridge, but again, too little to really make a difference.
The last henchman here is Bob Conley, the geologist who Zorin employs. Zorin kills him in the mine. I really again don't get a hell of a lot of character out of this character, we're given very little for the supporting cast here, nothing to help us understand their motivations, their reasons for being, not even much about their character. Ultimately, these guys are little more than props in the film, Mcguffins really, just designed to move the plot along at certain points, and not much more than that.
STUNT AND ACTION SEQUENCES.
I have to mention this here, because once again, like Moonraker, the action sequences aren't quite up to par, and mostly it's because of the writing. May Day's leap off the Eiffel Tower is a stunning moment, but in one shot, you can see the platform that was used for the stuntman to jump off of, and that moment takes you out of the film.
The fights are generally also weaker, mainly because of Roger Moore's age in this film. It would look ludicrous if Moore was fighting people half his age, so most of the fights are with older guys, but it just looks silly.
The sequence in the pipe that I mentioned earlier was particularly stupid and really bad, and the horse racing sequence where Zorin tries to dispose of Bond was also very lame. I almost wonder if the producers set themselves a challenge to have as many different kinds of action sequences in one film as it was possible to do, and it didn't really work at all.
THE SCRIPTING
I have to mention this separately, even though I've mentioned it a lot in the writing up of the plot, but it bears repeating once more. This was an incredibly badly scripted film. There was one huge plot hole, in getting Bond from France, which I believe is where the stables were, to Bond arriving in San Francisco. That hole is practically Grand Canyon sized, and yet most people just seem to not notice it.
There are other points where you can tell the writing between plot points is very weak, badly covering up what could have been plot holes, but the writing is so bad that you almost think that the plot holes might not have been noticed by most people, considering how few people mention the Grand Canyon sized plot hole of Bond arriving in San Francisco and knowing Zorin is there, despite having had nothing in the previous part of the film to tell Bond that San Francisco was where he was going.
And there's the moments like James Stock of the Financial Times, and San Francisco's almost Keystone Kops-like police force. Some of that is just lazy writing and whilst you might get away with one of those moments in a film, any more than that, you are pretty much asking for trouble.
The script is the meant to be the blueprint for the film, or at least, a good starting point, a solid foundation, but here, the script is undermining the whole film and dragging it down.
OVERALL
I know I've been very critical of the film, but it is more enjoyable than any of the ones I've reviewed up to now. It has a sense of being aware that it's not a great film, and has some fun, and you can go along with that and enjoy the film for the ride that it is, but overall, it's not a good film at all. And I think Roger Moore knew that, as he retired from the role. Some good characters, some good moments, but let down by a poor script, and didn't have any major high points to help raise the film out of the mire. What high points there were were still undermined by too many factors to make them really great, but they were good nonetheless.
If I want to watch a Roger Moore Bond film, I have 4 films I will go to before this, and they are higher up the list, and we have some way to go before we hit the first of them.
Before that, we hit number 19 next time, and the first Pierce Brosnan film on the list, and it will probably as no surprise to you, when I reveal which of his films I rank as the worst...
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